Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a late Baroque German composer and performer. Instrumental works include the Cello Suites and Brandenburg Concertos, keyboard works like the Goldberg Variations, The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the Toccata and Fugue in D vocal works like the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He has been widely acknowledged as one of the finest composers in the history of Western music since the 19th-century Bach Revival. Bach's command of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and his adoption of rhythms, forms, and textures from elsewhere, particularly Italy and France, enriched established German idioms. Hundreds of sacred and secular cantatas are among Bach's works. He wrote Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets, among other works. He used Lutheran hymns frequently, not only in his more extensive vocal works but also in his four-part chorales and holy songs.

Bach composed a lot of music for the organ and other keyboard instruments. He wrote concertos for violin and harpsichord, as well as suites for chamber music and orchestra. Many of his pieces use the canon and fugue genres. Bach's keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was praised for its pedagogical aspects throughout the 18th century. Several critical Bach biographies were published in the nineteenth century, and by the end of the century, all of his known music had been printed. Scholarship on the composer continued to be disseminated through periodicals devoted solely to him and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis and new critical editions of his works. His music was popularized further through various arrangements, such as the Air on the G String and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," as well as recordings, such as three distinct box sets with complete performances of the composer's output commemorating his 250th birthday.